Cameron Williams is a Chattanooga, Tenn., hiphop artist who goes by the name C-Grimey. Like probably half of the African-American people traveling on the roadways by car who have their “papers out of order,” Mr. Williams has a “revoked” driver license and faces criminal charges if he uses the roadway as a driver or operator of a motor vehicle (meaning, in commerce). (Photos Cameron Williams)

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Cameron Williams, or C-Grimey, is a Chattanooga, Tenn., hip-hop artist who has a revoked license from the department of safety and homeland security, and is supposed to believe that it’s a crime for him to use a car or truck on the public right of way without a valid license.

Mr. Williams, who performs in venues in the Chattanooga area and in Atlanta, is coming slowly to understand how to get a TAN — how to take advantage of Transportation Administrative Notice Tennessee, a sunny remedy found within the bright corridors of state law regulating transportation. He now only half believes it’s a crime, and is working slowly toward emancipation in his own thinking about his rights under the U.S. and Tennessee constitutions.

Transportation administrative notice provides Mr. Williams a defense if he is falsely accused of “driving on revoked,” a criminal case where state actors harass individuals by the bad-faith use of Tenn. Code Ann. § Title 55, the state transportation and driver license law.

His defense is this: That he is not subject to or liable under the law because he is a private person using the road for private purposes, and the prosecutor in Hamilton County, Neal Pinkston, knows better because he has been under notice about the limits in the statute.

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Mr. Williams’ defense in court, and on the street, is that he is traveling under transportation administrative notice, and the city of Chattanooga, Hamilton County, and other jurisdictions know full well that they cannot act outside the authority of the law to prosecute him criminally when he has committed no crime under the criminal code in Title 39 and that he is not subject to Title 55 because he is not a commercial user of the people’s right of way.

A new defense

The defense is that the accused was not traveling under Title 55, which grants the state’s police regulatory authority to impose rules and surveil people involved in the for-hire use of the roads, carrying goods or people under agreement or contract, for pay, in commerce.

The defense has always been available to that half of the African-American population whose driver license status is revoked, suspended, expired or none.

But TAN gives impetus to the claim, and seeks a mass relief of prosecutorial misconduct by Mr. Pinkston and his assistant district attorneys. And relief from police misconduct. This combination, this fellowship of the finger, operating outside the scope of the law creates fear, hatred and terror among people who are not their subjects because they are not involved in commercial activity on the road.

This law enforcement activity outside of law has the effect of intimidating and coercing a civilian population, influencing the policy of units of government such as the courts by intimidating mass caseloads and dockets, and affecting the operation of units of government such as county jails by seizures and abductions of citizens, travelers and others — an act that is akin to government kidnapping — to keep cells in these buildings at or capacity — or overcapacity.

Plea bargain? Don’t be silly

But now that transportation administrative notice is a public document, as of Oct. 16, Rhea County register’s office, and sealed in the records of Rhea County register of deeds, a criminal defendant has a strong defense that he can enter into evidence as a public document.

TAN is available online. If one were really serious about defying malicious prosecution under Title 55, one could also contact the clerk, Teresa Hulgan, in Rhea County and ask for or order a certified printed copy. I believe that any public document is self-enforcing as a public document without special certification. I’d have to check.

If you are going to use the notice in a court case, you may want a certified copy of TAN from Mrs. Hulgan.

Of course, you would be a fool to plea bargain with the district attorney’s office in sessions court. Instead, you have a right to stand your ground and go to trial, asking for a “trial by jury.” An indictment is a protection that too few people understand, because the grand jury is a citizen filter of police / state / prosecutor accusations, giving such claims a minimal once-over. Having the grand jury review the charges against you before trial is a protection every defendant or accused should claim.

Invoking ‘guilty mind’ or ‘intent’ statute in your defense

In a nutshell, the TAN defense of free travel provides you a notice in law and also one that informs your intent. All criminal charges must allege intent, or mens rea, guilty mind.

Your defense is that the state has no subject matter jurisdiction and no in personam jurisdiction because the accused is not traveling for hire in commerce, but is a private user of the road, exercising God-given, constitutionally guaranteed, and alienable and inherent rights and immunities.

Mind you, I’m not an attorney and don’t give legal advice. If you want legal advice because you believe that the law matters, go to another planet and consult a licensed attorney practicing there, and he might help you in his state, or your own, as if law really mattered.

Mr. Williams’ defense is that the state is misapplying the law and that he is not subject to the officer and that he has no jurisdiction to stop him, and did not have jurisdiction to seize him, charge him, or cite him under Title 55, particularly if Mr. Williams cites TAN at the moment of the encounter and keeps his lips shut regarding any facts about himself, his doings, his status, his person or his property. The moment he starts making admissions, his defense becomes less likely, if not impossible.

Cop’s limited options

I always have a copy of TAN with me as a courtesy copy, and I plan to give it to any officer in a jurisdiction that has been notified of the travel-transportation distinction revealed in the notice. That would be Chattanooga, Red Bank, East Ridge and Hamilton County and Dayton, Tenn. I haven’t done Soddy-Daisy or Collegedale, yet.

Transportation administrative notice’s role is two-fold. At the traffic stop for Mr. Williams, he offers it as a positive defense that the officer must override. He hopes the officer knows he is acting under personal authority in the traffic stop, and hopes he discretely lets him go. If it is a routine stop for a transportation rules-of-the-road violation, the officer will be hard-pressed to state a claim of a real crime out of Title 39, the criminal statutes. And he has no authority to arrest Mr. Williams if Mr. Williams asserts he is “under transportation administrative notice” because Mr. Williams is using the road privately, not commercially.

Under this strong defense of one’s rights not to incriminate himself, Mr. William’s secret status as “revoked” is irrelevant; the cop cannot get to that as a matter of fact in the encounter.

And in court, where Mr. Williams intends to free himself from the lies, deceit and false claims by the cop, he will argue (albeit obliquetly) that the officer is acting in bad faith, outside the scope of the law, under color of law, and in his personal capacity in the arrest (subject to tort action later, obviously). He’ll make these points by doing the following. He will challenge jurisdiction and demand what evidence the officer obtained in the traffic stop that he was operating commercially. Cops and deputies NEVER get that material, and they won’t until my simple reform is finally imposed on traffic stop protocol across Tennessee. Absent subject matter jurisdiction for the traffic stop, Judge Alex McVeagh has little choice but to dismiss, I would speculate.

Mr. C-Grimey affects all these points by simply insisting that the DA and the cop carry 100 percent the burden of proof. The heaviest part of that proof is this: That Mr. Williams is engaged in commerce, some kind of commerce, some kind of trade using the road, with the road his principal place of business. Absent that, nothing else matters in the state’s case vs. Mr. Williams. If he is not in commerce, he is not subject to anything in Title 55, and Sherry Paty or Russell Bean in city court or Judge McVeagh in sessions court must throw out the case.

My standing comment in these matters is this: Obey every law to which you are liable for obedience, and honor all rules, statutes or laws that create for you a duty or liability. Always obey every law that applies to you and to which you are subject. It is up to you to determine which laws actually do, and if you are freedom oriented, you’ll give my material some consideration.